Cancer Awareness- Be Careful What You Eat

Now that bread has joined an environment body’s list of suspicious objects that can cause cancer, we need to be careful what we eat.

- Shalini Bhardwaj

On 24 May, Delhi’s newspapers created a stir when they carried a report that Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) had analysed bread samples and found they contained ‘possible’ cancer causing chemicals. The chemicals found were potassium bromate and potassium iodate, which are banned in many countries, but not in India. !e bread industry promptly denied it uses these chemicals.

CSE will not have the last word on the subject – the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) will now step in to examine its findings. But there can be no doubt that people will panic if they find that their daily bread can cause cancer. While bread used to be a breakfast good only for the Anglicised elite a few years back, its use has percolated down to all sections of society.

The incidence of cancer is increasing day by day in India. !e number of cases is estimated to grow at a rate of 25 percent by 2020, according to the cancer registry released by the Indian Council of Medical research (ICMR). If 14 lakh cases were reported in 2016, the number is expected to jump to 17.3 lakh by 2020. Death due to cancer is estimated to go up from 7.36 lakh to over 8.8 lakh in the next four years.